Anyways, I found this recipe on Pinterest a few weeks ago. If you’re not already following us on Pinterest make sure you do – we post, and repost cool stuff!. It was for a healthy energy ball. The thing that really caught my attention were the words NO BAKE, and HEALTHY. Hmmm I thought, maybe I could try those one day. My kids love granola bars, I don’t love the ingredients that always come with them, or the price tag for the healthy ones. I figured it would be worth a try.

Sunday night we were feeling an itch for a treat and I didn’t want to turn on the oven. I had about half the ingredients the recipe called for (I don’t always have cocunut or ground flax seed). I read the full post on the Smashed Peas and Carrots Blog, the recipe came from and decided substitutions would work just fine. I ended up with this mixture and JUST for you, I paid special attention to my measurements so I could share it. Not that I’ll ever actually measure when I make these again!

Ingredients
2 cups old fashion oats (original recipe called for 1 cup coconut, 1 cup oats, but I substituted)
1/2 cup peanut butter (I used organic – the kind that has JUST peanuts)
1/3 raw honey (doesn’t really have to be raw)
1/2 cup of chocolate chips (I chopped them, to make them go through out more of the mixture)
1 tsp vanilla

Directions
Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix. You then put the mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes to cool. If you’re going powerless, you can skip this, it will just make the mixture tougher to make balls out of. That’s when you just grab a spoon and eat the mixture right out of the bowl. After the mixture is cool, roll into balls. Store in an airtight container in the fridge – if they last that long.

What I love about this recipe, is that it uses Food Storage, it has no refined sugar (outside of the chocolate chips), or butter, or baking, or REAL need for measuring. If it’s too sticky, add more dry stuff. If it’s too dry, add more honey. Substitute whatever you like. I think I’ll do raisins instead of chocolate chips next time, maybe craisins, chop some nuts… whatever you like. I think I’ll make these again for sure!

Bread in a Bag: A Creative Way to Store Bread! by Pam Emick

Background: We reviewed the book Dinner is in the Jar a couple of years ago … and when we were first approached by Pam Emick the author of Bread in a Bag we knew we would love her book too since it’s a similar concept. Rather than have to pull out all the individual ingredients for your bread every time you bake it, you simply stockpile the ingredients in the correct proportions all in one mylar bag or mason jar. GENIUS idea! She offered to give us a copy of her book to review and we were very happy to do so

What I Liked: Bread in a Bag is VERY thorough. It covers everything you will need to know, do, and buy if you want to use this storage method. There are a wide variety of different types of bread recipes in the book, and each one has detailed instructions on how exactly to store it, including if you need to put things in separate baggies for measurement purposes. There are also instructions for how to make the bread if you are using your “bag”, including what liquid or fresh ingredients you would need to add. Pam includes great labels for each recipe to make it SIMPLE when you pull out a bag or jar to bake your bread.

My Favorite Part: I love the recipes that are small enough to fit in a quart jar. I don’t keep mylar bags on hand so if I want to make this philosophy a big part of my storage I will need to get some materials for that. In the book it indicates recipes that can fit in a half-gallon mylar bag and those ones seem to work well in the jars too. I made the Hawaiian Bread (VERY delicious with the hint of lemon and the orange zest added in) and while I had everything out it was very easy to just measure the ingredients into a jar at the same time I was measuring them into my mixer. Then a few days later I had a FAST easy bread mix ready to go. LOVE!

Feedback: I think this is a great concept for making white breads, however I store more wheat than white flour due to the longer shelf life. We asked Pam about storing fresh ground whole wheat in the bags and she thought it wouldn’t be a problem. However, I would be concerned about the wheat going rancid unless I kept the whole bag/jar in the freezer. I think if you used commercially bought wheat flour you would be fine if you used it within the shelf life of that wheat. For me personally, if I’m going to do a jar for a recipe calling for wheat flour, I will just stick wheat kernels in baggies into the jars and then grind them up when I pull out the jar to make the recipe. This is still a very convenient way to do it and I won’t have to be concerned about my wheat flour going bad.

Summary: Bread in a Bag introduces a new way to think about your food storage and gives you all the tools you need to make these bread kits sooo easily. Her recipes look really great (I can’t wait to try the hamburger buns!). My plan is to go through the book trying a new recipe every few weeks and each time I do it just make a couple of jars or bags at the same time. Over a few months this should give me a GREAT supply of bread kits, ready-to-bake, and using foods already in my storage. If you are struggling with keeping up on making homemade bread consistently, or just want some new recipes to try out, I would definitely recommend Bread in a Bag

When I got married, my mother-in-law (Jodi’s mom – known as Grandma Lori around here) gave me a very special gift. She had each of my relatives and close friends fill out a recipe card or two of their favorite, most trusted recipes. I LOVE that little box of recipe cards because it contains a lot of family favorites that my husband and I both grew up loving from our aunts, grandparents etc. One of my go-to recipes out of that box has been my Aunt Debbie’s Vegetable Cheese Chowder (We call it Creamy Potato Soup). Over the years I’ve figured out a way to incorporate my food storage into this soup AND make it virtually fat free!. Through some creative cooking techniques (removing the flour, milk, and butter) I can feel good about eating this more often. I’ll share both versions with you here today!

CREAMY POTATO SOUP (Original)

Ingredients:
4 cups cubed potatoes
2 cups diced carrots
2 cups diced celery
1/2 cup minced onions
2 t salt
4 cups water
10 oz frozen broccoli (or 2 cups fresh)
3 T chicken bouillon
3 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
1 T dry mustard
1 lb shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:
In large pot, place potatoes, carrots, celery & onions (also broccoli if fresh). Add water + salt. Cook about 20 mins until tender. Add broccoli (if frozen), chicken base & milk. Simmer 5 mins.

In saucepan melt butter, add flour and mustard. Stir to make sauce. Add to soup and stir until thick. Add cheese, stirring until melted. Keep hot, but do not boil.

CREAMY POTATO SOUP (Fat free)

Ingredients:
4 cups cubed potatoes
1/2 cup minced onions (or equivalent in freeze dried onion – about 1/4 c.)
2 t salt
3 T chicken bouillon
2 cups diced carrots (or equivalent in dehydrated carrots – about 1 c.)
2 cups diced celery (or equivalent in freeze dried celery – about 1 c.)
10 oz frozen broccoli (or equivalent in freeze dried broccoli – about 1 c.)
1 T dry mustard
4 T white bean flour mixed with 3/4 c. water (any white bean ground in your Wondermill will work)
Cheddar cheese for topping – if you’re feeling naughty!

Directions:
In one pot I cover the potatoes and onions with water, and add the chicken bouillon and salt. In a different pot (there’s a reason for the 2 pots), I put all the carrots, celery, and broccoli together with very little water and start cooking about 5 mins after I start cooking the potatoes. If I am using freeze dried veggies, I add a little more water, and let them cook and hydrate at the time (meaning I don’t add water and get them hydrated ahead of time).

Once the potatoes are done cooking and are soft and tender, I take a masher, and very LIGHTLY mash them. I mash them enough that there are still quite a few chunks left, but it’s slightly creamy. This is one of the ways I get the creaminess of the soup without the flour, butter and milk! After the potatoes are slightly mashed, I add the carrots, celery and broccoli WITH it’s water. A lot of the nutrients, get into that water so I want to keep it. That’s why I cooked it in the first place with very little water.

At this point it should be a little on the liquidy side, and that’s when I add the white bean flour/water mixture to get the rest of the creaminess without the flour, butter, and milk. This will thicken the soup right up. Make sure you leave it cooking (boiling) for at least 3 minutes to get the beans all the way cooked. Add the dry mustard here too. Here’s a secret, I never have that so I usually put about 1/2 Tablespoon of real mustard, not knowing if that really has any likening to mustard seed, but it flavors it a tiny bit so I go with it.

Since the soup is still fat free at this point, I’ll usually top it with a little cheddar cheese because I deserve it (freeze-dried cheese would work for this too).

So there you have it. Soup that uses freeze dried veggies and white bean flour. I ALWAYS use freeze dried onion, ALMOST ALWAYS use freeze dried broccoli, and often use freeze dried carrots, and celery if I don’t have any on hand. Next up, I’ll try it with freeze dried or dehydrated potatoes and really be ambitious!

Food Storage Blackberry Pie

Pie Crust
2 cups flour
1 T. salt
3/4 cups butter flavored shortening
1 T. egg powder
3/4 cups cold water

Combine flour and salt. Cut in the shortening until the mixture is crumbly. Combine the egg powder and water. Add to the flour mix and stir until dough is formed. This makes a VERY VERY soft sticky dough. Split into two pieces. Put in refrigerator for an hour for easier rolling. Roll out half the dough on a floured surface and place into a 9″ pie crust. Put back in fridge while you prepared the filling.

Blackberry Filling
5-6 cups freeze-dried blackberries, rehydrated and drained
1 T. lemon juice
3/4 cup white sugar
3 T. corn starch
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
(Adapted from this joyofbaking.com recipe)

After the blackberries are hydrated and drained, mix with lemon juice. Combine the other ingredients in a separate bowl and then pour into the blackberries. Mix it all around and pour into the cool pie shell. Roll out the other half of the dough and cut it into 1 inch slices. Lay in a criss-cross pattern over the blackberry filling (feel free to actually weave them if you are that talented).

Mix up a tiny bit of powdered milk with about twice the amount of powder as it normally calls for. Brush over top of the crust and then sprinkle with white sugar. Cover the edges with tinfoil and bake at 425 for about 30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and delicious.

Cooking Options
This could be cooked in a volcano grill if you have the tent “lid”, in a cardboard box oven, or probably even in a Sun Oven although I’m not sure how brown the crust would get. I may have to experiment with that. Check out our FREE ONLINE POWERLESS COOKING CLASS for more on these cooking options.

Well last week I brought it to the NEXT FOOD STORAGE LEVEL! I tried it using freeze dried chicken and freeze dried cheese. I always justified the chicken and cheese in there by saying I keep a 3 month supply in my freezer, but I always wondered in the back of my mind, if it could ever be done ALL THE WAY SHELF STABLE?!?!? Well the answer is YES. I was impressed, and relived all at the same time with how it turned out.

Now I’m not going to lie. Making it the Shelf Stable Deluxe way is a TON of work. BUT, I dare you to try it at least once. It tastes INCREDIBLE because of how much fresher and healthier it is. It’s also a GREAT way to try all sorts of food storage foods, and techniques. If you like the recipe, then you can decide how ambitious you will be with it in the future. Maybe you make some of it shelf stable, and some of it fresh. You may not choose to be as ambitious as I had to be by bringing over 100 samples of it to a food storage fair, but hey – we all have our crazy moments!

I’ve been making homemade whole wheat tortillas for awhile now by hand. A friend of mine called me a couple weeks ago and said she wanted to make a lot of them for lunches and snacks and wanted to know some of my tricks for making and storing them in bulk. When she asked me this, I had to confess I only really make them for this one recipe because rolling them out is actually kind of annoying. It’s totally doable, and I did a post about it awhile back, but making them by hand takes enough time that I shy away from it.

Well then, we were asked to come to a food storage fair where we needed to bring samples for 150+ people. The recipe we made called for tortillas. Homemade ones. Using fresh ground wheat. Well, I wasn’t about to make enough for THAT many people by hand. Oh – we’ll be sharing the recipe Thursday, so you’ll just have to stay tuned for that. Anyways, that’s when I called my other friend and asked to borrow this beautiful tortilla maker from her. The magic machine FLATTENS AND COOKS the tortilla in a fraction of the time and they turn out PERFECT!

Making Tortillas Using a Tortilla Press

This is the recipe I used. I followed the directions, then instead of rolling the balls of dough out, I just flattened them in the maker and waited for them to cook. It was like watching someone ELSE do a really annoying job… Now if only I could find a way for my laundry to magically clean and fold itself.

Directions:
1. Mix all dry ingredients together.
2. Add the oil, then the water. Knead 5 minutes
3. Roll the dough out so you can easily make equal pieces
4. Let dough rest 10 minutes
5. Form into 12
6. Roll thin (spray pam to help if there are sticking or dryness problems)
7. Grill on both sides, they cook quickly (no need to grease the frying pan at all)
8. Eat! It doesn’t take long to cook.

When I asked my friend where she got her press, she said she did her research and the best place to get this one was on amazon. Check it out here

Making Tortillas By Hand

I know fancy tortilla presses aren’t in everyone’s budget, so for a full post on making these by hand, check out the post here. Here are some kitchen tools that may make making them by hand a little easier.

I use a little hand roller that helps a lot and since I use tortillas mostly in recipes where they don’t have to look perfect, I don’t feel so bad when they don’t turn out in perfect circles… (Although I’m sure I could trace some lid from a bowl and cut around it if I really cared)

My sister uses this kind of tortilla press and she says they are much faster and easier to make using this than a rolling pin.

 

Hope you like these!

Today we are highlighting the BREAD board. Bread is something that most people want to master as part of their food storage education due to the fact that we store so much wheat. This board has several of our favorite bread recipes, bread making tips, and other yummy things you can make out of bread dough.

• PIN 1: Our all-time favorite 100% whole wheat bread recipe.
• PIN 2: See Julie’s experiment with the super-nutritious Ezekiel bread.
• PIN 3: Olive garden breadsticks … yummy!
• PIN 4: Whole wheat bread from start to finish (Grain, Grind, Bread)

Make sure you check out the rest of the items on the Recipes board. We’ll keep adding to these boards as we find great stuff, and we’ll see you tomorrow to highlight another one of our boards!

Don’t forget you can Follow us on Pinterest so you don’t miss any of the great stuff we will be pinning in the future.

Today we are highlighting the Recipes board. There are so many great food storage recipes out there, and so many great regular recipes that you can substitute your food storage items in. It just takes a little practice and you can make delicious meals!

• PIN 1: Check out how we mixed in food storage to our favorite recipes from the ladies over at Our Best Bites
• PIN 2: A tutorial video showing you how to use your food storage to make homemade, whole-wheat spinach noodles. Healthy and delicious!
• PIN 3: Jodi turned one of her favorite recipes into a shelf stable version.
• PIN 4: A list of recipes that use grains from your food storage.

Make sure you check out the rest of the items on the Recipes board. We’ll keep adding to these boards as we find great stuff, and we’ll see you tomorrow to highlight another one of our boards!

Don’t forget you can Follow us on Pinterest so you don’t miss any of the great stuff we will be pinning in the future.

Whenever I go to the grocery store I try to grab a tub or two of sour cream, but considering I try to avoid going to the grocery store as much as possible, this never lasts for very many meals. The other day I really wanted to make poppyseed chicken, and I REALLY did not want to go to the store for sour cream, so I broke out my little pantry can of sour cream powder and decided to risk ruining the recipe with it. Well I have to say, it was a completely suitable substitution. Hurray!

Now knowing me, of course my next thought was “could I make this entire MEAL shelf stable”? That was quite the adventure but I’m happy to let you know that it is possible, and delicious. And your families will be thanking you in a powerless emergency that you can make something absolutely normal (and delicious). Please note, I do not pretend that this is a “healthy” meal, proceed with caution.

Here is the scoop on the recipe and the substitutions I made:

Poppyseed Chicken (original recipe)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds chicken, diced and boiled
2 cans cream of chicken soup
12-16 oz sour cream
1/2 cup melted butter

Topping:
1/2 cup melted butter
2 tubes ritz crackers, crushed
2 T. poppyseeds

Directions:
Combine cream of chicken soup, sour cream, and butter. Pour over cooked chicken in a 9×13 pan or a slightly smaller oval casserole dish. Combine topping ingredients in small bowl. Sprinkle over top of chicken mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until heated through. Cover with foil until the last 5 minutes or the topping may get browner than you like. Serve over rotini noodles.

Poppyseed Chicken (shelf stable version)

Ingredients:
1 qt jar home-canned chicken or 3 cups freeze-dried chicken reconstituted
2 cans cream of chicken soup (or 20 ounces bean flour cream of chicken)
1 1/2 cups sour cream powder, rehydrated with 3/4 cup water
1/2 cup butter powder, rehydrated with 1/2 cup water

Topping:
1/2 cup butter powder, rehydrated with 1/2 cup water
2 tubes ritz crackers, crushed
2 T. poppyseeds

Directions:
Combine cream of chicken soup, sour cream, and butter. I happened to be out of cream of chicken soup this day too, so I used the bean flour cream of chicken recipe doubled, and then only used 20 ounces of it. It seemed to work just fine in this recipe but I still like cans of cream of chicken for the ease on some days. Pour over chicken in a 9×13 pan or a slightly smaller oval casserole dish. Combine topping ingredients in small bowl. The rehydrated butter is a lot more runny than regular butter, but it doesn’t mix with the ritz like normal melted butter would. It ended up being more mushy rather than crumbly. Use your hands to sprinkle over top of chicken mixture as best you can. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until heated through. Cover with foil until the last 5 minutes or the topping may get browner than you like. Serve over rotini noodles.

As I am looking at this picture I realized that I think it is a picture of my ritzy potato recipe rather than poppyseed chicken, hehe, but it is quite similar ingredients and you can see the texture of the sauce and the topping made with powdered butter so I will leave it in here. That will teach me for taking a picture in my phone of a yummy recipe and then wait for months to get around to posting it on the blog! I blame my pregnant brain.

One great way to have information off line is through books, printed recipes, and your Food Storage Made Easy Binder.

Food Storage Books

We have done a number of Food Storage Book reviews that we wanted to remind you about, and encourage you to figure out which books would best fit your needs. These are great things to ask for as gifts, or to give as gifts. Here are some of our current Food Storage Book reviews, along with some books we will be reviewing in the future:

Emergency Food Storage in a Nutshell – REVISED review to reflect the new edition
Country Beans – Amazing book on all things beans
Cooking with Food Storage Made Easy – Cute book with tons of easy recipes!
Jan’s Fabulous Food Storage Recipes – Treasure trove of great information
Dinner is in the Jar – A different approach to food storage

It’s in the Bag – COMING SOON
The Dehydrator Bible – COMING SOON
Cooking with Sunshine – COMING SOON

Food Storage Recipes

Recipes is probably one of the MOST important things to have in print format. Not only will it save your laptop from tomato slime by having it in the kitchen, but you’ll be able to cook without power and internet!

For some great tips about building your recipes offline see these posts:
How to Organize Your Recipes – Jodi shares her approach to compiling recipe binders with a great little tutorial
FREE Shelf Stable Cookbook – Compilation of over 200 shelf stable recipes you can print out and add to your binder

Food Storage Made Easy Binder

As a part of our Food Storage Made Easy ebook binder, we’ve included tons of informative articles and recipes you can turn to in times of need. We also encourage you to print other resources you find online or at classes you may attend and put it into your binder. Use the binder as your main go-to resource for building and using your food storage.